Combination of non-thermal plasma and heterogeneous catalysis for methane and hexadecane co-cracking: Effect of voltage and catalyst configuration

Co-cracking of methane and n-hexadecane is investigated over Mo-Ni/Al2O3 catalyst in a packed bed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactor. The effects of applied voltage and plasma-catalyst configuration are experimentally studied in terms of process energy efficiency and product composition. Hydrogen and gaseous hydrocarbon (methane, C-2, C-3 and C-4 components) are obtained as the cracking product. Results show that combination of catalyst and plasma improves energy efficiency of hydrocarbons plasma conversion. The applied voltage has dominant effect on the catalytic-plasma cracking process and in-plasma catalysis configuration is more efficient compared with post-plasma catalysis. The highest energy efficiency is achieved the value of 194.44 l/kW h for in-plasma configuration under highest applied voltage condition (11 kV). In these conditions, the production rate and mole percent of hydrogen are obtained 107.66 ml/min and 63.7%, respectively. The effect of catalyst deactivation is also investigated on the process variables. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.